A Valley of Ashes

by Lynn Rogers

Silicon Valley post-9/11. Secret operations. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Perfect Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0971103941
• ISBN13: 9780971103948
• Release Date: March 2008
• Publisher: Inkling Press
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Another Fine Novel From San Jose's Finest Author

Once again, as she accomplished in her earlier novel, The Rainbow's Daughter, Lynn Rogers beckons the reader into a world distinctively her own that is chilling, intricately visualized, and irresistably attractive. As Steinbeck dramatized the diaspora of the dust bowl in central California, Rogers uses the dislocation of the dot.com bust to provide the circumstances and setting of The Valley of Ashes. Monterey Road, very near downtown San Jose, is where most of the novel is set particularly at the site of the now demolished site of a major corporation plant. The characters range into two groups -roughly a generation apart - who symbolize a family that has been a shattered and separated, yet still seek to find community and bonding in a very insecure world. There is also a very suspenseful feature to the novel's elegantly tight plot makes this novel different in aspect from Where the Flowers Have Gone or The Rainbow's Daughter, which is not to diminish the author's earlier, equally fine, and more autobiographical works. As a native San Josean, I particularly love the way Lynn lyrically captures what for me is the heart of the city on the Monterey Road corridor from downtown out beyond the cemetary, "showing like a scalp through someone's hair," to the picturesque trailor parks and horseshoe motels. Characters who might normally ignore each other are logically drawn together and share their conflicting values and personalities in a way that is surprisingly convincing. The Valley of Ashes is my favorite Rogers' novel after The Rainbow's Daughter, which is a classic of our time and Born in Berkeley, which is the novel for which she is most famous.

A Valley of Ashes

A story of conflicted characters, each trying to deal with their demons. Rogers leads me through their intertwined lives. In a sense, this novel is a mystery story. She suceeds in keeping me guessing as to their successes or failures until the end. I get into the characters' heads with the author's stream of consciousness. A cross between James Joyce and John Steinbeck. It is a story of modern day Silicon Valley but with flawed characters trying to make their ways through life.